The Famished Road is a Booker Prize awarded novel by Nigerian writer Ben Okri. Literature critics relate this book to magical realism. It tells a story about a spirit-child Azaro. In a way, it is a story about personal growth, because we follow the main character on his famished road through the whole book. Some may argue there is no growth since the narrator remains a little boy up to the end of the novel. However, the transformation occurs within him; it can be compared to the water of a river, which constantly changes yet remains the same. It finds endorsement in the novel: “In the beginning, there was a river. The river became a road, and the road branched out to the whole world” (Okri, 1992).
Azaro’s story is a symbol of eternal existence and never-ending growth. While being a highly imaginative and mythological novel set in Africa, it tells a story of transformation, to which anyone can relate, regardless of one’s upbringing and culture. It is why this book rightfully occupies its place among the treasures of world literature.
The unusual representation of reality can be explained by the background of the book’s author. Ben Okri is a Nigerian writer currently residing in Great Britain. He spent his early childhood in South London and attended a local school, but in 1968 Okri’s family returned to Nigeria. His father worked as a lawyer in the poor neighborhoods of Lagos. In 1978, Ben Okri returned to Great Britain with the purpose of acquiring an education. He attended the University of Essex but did not earn a degree because of the lack of funds. Besides his writing career, Ben Okri worked for BBC. In his work, Okri connects the modernist poetics of the oral traditions of the Nigerian peoples, developing the line of such African authors like Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, and Wole Soyinka.
The entire novel consists of the relations between the spirit-child Azaro and his powerful spirit-brothers, who encourage him to fulfill the vow, seek him out, spin intrigues, entice and tempt him, and finally, just make fun of him. Asaro sees and hears them, while none of his relatives and people around him do. Azaro’s real-world family lives “a hand-to-mouth existence, with his father doing manual labor jobs for very little money, and his mother peddling what cheap goods she can get ahold of” (The Famished Road, n.d.). If the story events were unfolding somewhere in Europe or America, Azaro would be already locked up in an asylum for his visions.
But this is Nigeria, and things are different here. The spirit child’s visions are not only a punishment but also a gift. Regardless of the fact, he is familiar with all kinds of the most sophisticated multi-headed, scaly, feathered, flying, creeping, burning, and flowing creatures, he is a completely sane little boy with an inquiring mind and a good heart. He learns to understand the world of a small Nigerian neighborhood where everyday life is filled with the sole desire to survive.
The mysticism inherent in the novel is conditional upon Ben Okri’s background. His father stems from the Urhobo peoples, the inhabitants of the Niger Delta. His Igbo mother’s name is Grace; his father’s name is Silver (Ben Okri, n.d.). Urhobo’s aboriginal religion presupposes, along with the physical body, the existence of the spiritual body able to travel around the world and up to the moon, communicate with other spirits, and perceive the invisible world. Urhobo believes both in the afterlife, and the prelife. According to Ben Okri’s novel, everything is interconnected in the world; each person is merely a link in the chain comprising of countless simultaneous pasts and futures.
A reader would float The Famished Road as if it was a slow but treacherous river. In the novel, there is no opening, no climax, and no resolution; Okri does not accept any scheme; it is not in his tradition. Basically, the story is a whimsical stream of both consciousness and unconsciousness out of the author’s and the reader’s control. As Okri himself stated, this is explained by the fact that Azaro’s time is “neither cyclical nor linear,” but “vertical” as certain scenes are placed outside of time, “contracted or expanded” according to the way Azaro perceives them (Guignery, 2014).
The Famished Road shamelessly ignores all the canons of the Western literature, such as the plot, composition, and drama, with the Southern spontaneity. Therein lies the charm of this book; it is an immersion into another culture as if it was a river, its complete acceptation without compromise. After growing familiar with the unusual setting, one sees that the exoticism gradually fades and recedes into the background; to the forefront, there comes the story of growing up, told somewhat airily and ironically.
Despite the exotic setting and the mythological connotations, The Famished Road brings up a universal topic, a story of personal growing up. Near the end of the book, Okri notes that everyone has to go their own famished road, that is, undergo their own transformation, just like Azaro did: “The spirit-child is an unwilling adventurer,” and “There are many who are of this condition and do not know it” (Okri, 1992).
References
Ben Okri. (n.d.). Web.
Guignery, V. (2014). The Famished Road: Ben Okri’s Imaginary Homelands. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Web.
Okri, B. (1992). The Famished Road. London, UK: Vintage Classics. Web.
The Famished Road. (n.d.). Web.